cinderellarhea

[cinderellarhea]

Fuck it Friday pt2

BuckTommy Reconciliation | Eddie Critical

"Eddie isn't your competition."

Tommy blinks, having just gotten grabbed and dragged in-between the 118 & 217 engines, faced with a dust-covered and almost crazed looking Evan. It's not exactly the reunion he had been trying to stop himself from hoping for.

"Uh--" he says, but isn't really sure what to say here.

"What did you say to me, when you picked me up out of that hallway? The night in the lab."

Tommy pretends to think, but he knows without having to. The words have been playing in his head since they night.

"I told you I was there, I told you I was sorry."

Evan nods, eyes wide. He's standing just a half step away from Tommy, breathing just a little labored.

"What else?"

"I said, uh, 'you did everything you could'."

Evan nods, and his gloved hand reaches out for Tommy. Tommy lets him, still confused and trying to keep up.

"Bobby made me leave. He made me leave him to die, and I don't know if I could have gotten off that floor if you didn't come for me."

"Evan--"

"No, please, I need to...I need to say this. I was devastated, and I'm still devastated. And you picked me up, you told me you were there for me. You told me that I did everything I could to save him."

"Of course I did." Tommy says, simply and without exaggeration. "Because you did."

Buck nods seriously, and his expression darkens for a moment.

"I have spent every minute since you put me in an ambulance that night trying to be there for everyone else, like Bobby wanted me to be. I've tried to be okay. And you know what my bes-" Evan's voice cracks, he purses his lips a moment in frustration and grief, "you know what my best friend said? That I was making Bobby's death all about myself. That everyone felt like they don't know how to 'handle' me."

Evan looks gutted at his own words, biting his lip but still looking right at Tommy.

"Eddie was never your competition, Tommy. He never will be. Because he's telling me that I didn't do enough to save Bobby, that I make everything into the tragedy of Evan Buckley."

Tommy feels rage well up within him, hot and volatile. He connects his back roughly with the truck behind him to ground himself and lets Evan finish.

"But you--" Evan says, voice cut down to a whisper, eyes blinking rapidly as they water, "you came and got me. Before that, you came when I called. And I have a hell of a lot to apologize for, but Tommy I have never felt anything like what I feel for you before. If you'll let me, I swear to you that every day I will show you how much you mean to me. How much I love you. I will make sure you never think you have competition again."

Tommy swallows thickly, struck by the speech. Evan patiently waits for him to answer, his cheeks getting more red by the second.

"I'm gonna kick Diaz's ass," Tommy says, squeezing Buck's hand, "and I'm going to kiss the hell out of you."

A smile breaks across Evan's face, and it's beautiful in the dying sunlight around them.

"Not necessarily in that order." Tommy says, and grabs Evan by the turnouts, smashing their lips together in a kiss that's definitely going to get him another talking to if they're caught. He tries to keep it brief enough to avoid that, but Evan makes a disappointed sound that stops him from pulling away completely.

"I love you too," Tommy mumbles against his lips, "of course I do. How could I not?"

Their moment is soundly popped then by Gerrard yelling out "Buckley!", and Tommy sighs before reaching out to straighten Evan's turnouts and get a good look at him. They can't help but smile at each other.

"So," Evan tells him, head tilting and mouth smirking in the way he knows always got exactly what he wanted from Tommy, "what are you doing Saturday?"

Tommy scoffs theatrically but it doesn't get rid of the smile on his face.

"That's my line, Buckley."

[cinderellarhea]

if there's solid ground below

It's been five years, but I wrote a whole fic this week thanks in no small part to the singular @iphyslitterator!

[Cross-posted to AO3]

“H—hey, Tommy?”

Tommy startles and bangs his head on the hood of his truck, recovering fast enough that none of the oil he was nearly done changing spilled but not so fast that it would have escaped Evan’s notice. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just surprised,” he says, grabbing for a spare rag to wipe his hands on. “Hi.”

“Got a sec?” Evan rocks onto the balls of his feet and back again, hands shoved deep in the pockets of a hoodie that, in southern California in May, it should really be too warm for. But he runs cold, and the layers always have the added bonus of making Tommy want to rip them off in some kind of Pavlovian response.

Had. Last summer, they’d had that effect. This summer was shaping up differently.

Evan tilts his head, a little quizzical, and Tommy realizes he’s been frozen in place for a few beats too long, dazedly dragging the rag between his fingers.

“Sorry, yeah, go ahead.” He glances down at the car, which hasn’t moved, then back at Evan, who’s still rocking but who looks, Tommy’s now realizing, noticeably lighter than he has in a while—certainly since the funeral, but maybe even more so than that night in the bar all those weeks ago. His smile is far too small, but it’s there. “Although if you need another helicopter, I’m gonna have to start charging you at some point.”

“That’s okay, I heard your fees are competitive,” he chirps, and if his grin isn’t yet lethal, it’s shifted to shit-eating. Which, for Tommy, is lethal anyway, and Evan knows it. “But no, I just…just wanted to talk this time. For real, for once.”

Oh. “Okay…?”

“You can keep doing whatever you were doing; I know you like to have something to do with your hands.”

“Uh, thanks.” He stuffs the rag in the back pocket of his jeans and fishes the oil canister out of his car’s innards. This might be easier without eye contact. “What’s up?”

“I’m taking a sabbatical from the LAFD,” Evan says. Tommy freezes again, more of a twitch than a full stop, and makes himself continue the actual task at hand. “Three months. Mostly thanks to an insane amount of unused PTO, because I realized I kinda haven’t taken a vacation that wasn’t just medical leave in like…ever. And I need a break, you know, after everything? Like, I spent a bunch of my twenties driving around, odd jobs and stuff, and the world is—is so much bigger than the firehouse, or this city, and…yeah.  I think I need that space for a bit. Just got it approved today. And then I came here.”

He pauses for breath, and Tommy stares unseeing at some perfectly intact wiring he could reconnect by touch alone if asked. “That’s great they’re letting you do that, Evan. I’m sure it’ll be good for you. How’d the others take it?”

There’s a little sigh. “I haven’t told them yet. Battalion chief said I’d always have a job to come back to, but they couldn’t hold my spot indefinitely. Depends on the new captain and how they want to staff up. Makes sense, obviously, so.” His sniffle is nearly inaudible, but Tommy’s never been able to tune out Evan’s frequency.

He gives up on the car, closing the hood with a quiet click and resuming with the rag, even though his hands aren’t especially dirty. “Never thought you’d voluntarily leave the 118.”

“I know, right?” Evan’s mouth twitches, and it’s not quite a smile now, but there’s something genuine growing back. “I mean, I guess I might not be, but. Things change, and it’s…time, maybe. I’m doing this, in any case. I—I—I just need to clear my head for a while. Go visit Minnesota, never been there, but then…I don’t know, maybe touch the Atlantic Ocean again. Camp out in some national parks. Go see the sky in Montana—it’s so big, Tommy, I’ve never seen anything like it, not since those years, and the last couple of months…it’s like the smog is just in everything right now, you know?”

Tommy nods. He can relate, despite how often he gets to soar above the chokehold of Los Angeles; smoke is smoke, and heat still rises. “I get it. So…this is goodbye, then?” He swallows, bites his lip, stares down at his fingers and the rag still entwined in them.

“No!” Evan leans forward for a breath, arm lifting, but he seems to stop himself, like he’s remembering they don’t know where they stand with each other, if he’s allowed to grab Tommy’s shoulder. “No, no, I’m coming back. LA is still home, my—my stuff’s going into a storage unit next week, my sister and my niece are here, and the new baby—the job—no, yeah, I’m coming back.”

“That’s good,” Tommy muses. “So…”

“So, I wanted to ask—I—I—I’m asking if you’d maybe be up for thinking about coming with me.”

Tommy freezes so suddenly, and so thoroughly, that the rag drops to the ground. “You—you’re going on a three-month road trip to get away from it all, and you want me to come with you?”

“Yeah, I do,” Evan says softly, surely, ducking his head in that bashful way he pretends not to know is so damn effective. “I need a break from everything, and everyone—but you, you’re not everyone. I meant what I said about being together, before. I still mean it.” Tommy feels both arms drop to his sides, heavy and limp like emptied hoses, and the air jerks out of his lungs as his throat closes tight.

Evan plows ahead. “I—if—if you don’t want to, or you can’t swing it with work, or whatever—I get it, that’s why I’m asking and not—not telling you what to do. I don’t—even if you don’t come, I’d wait. And, and text or call, maybe? If you wanted to? Even if it’s just as friends, my life is always better when you’re in it. Kinda hoping that goes both ways here.”

Tommy croaks, “And when you get tired of me before we hit Reno?”

“I won’t,” he says, no hesitation. Tommy’s slack face must do something, because he repeats, “Tommy, I won’t. I won’t. I just want time with you, more time, all the time. I want to try again, so, so bad. And if we fight, we can talk, and not just think the worst, and keep going, be—because I want to eat crappy gas station food with you and not think about the inside of a gym for weeks. I want to drive out somewhere where it feels like we’re the only people on the planet, and fuck in the back of your truck, and then figure out a map that’s older than either of us because there’s no cell service. Maybe rent a chopper in Montana so we can see that sky up close—there’s, there’s so many stars, and you’re the only person I’d want to see them with like that. I want to be locked in a moving vehicle with you all day, except for bathroom stops, and see your face when you realize it’s been 16 hours and we still have more to talk about, and we’ll just keep going, because I’m never gonna get tired of you.”

He pauses and swallows thickly, and Tommy can’t look away. For all that Evan Buckley wears his heart on his sleeve so easily for anyone to see, actually opening it up and offering to hand it over to someone else—that’s still work. “So—that’s what I came to say. That’s what I want. J—just think about it. No rush, I’m not—I’ll wait. If it’s what you want. You…you get to want things, too. So. Yeah.”

Evan nods to himself, rubs the back of his neck, and turns to walk back to his car, parked on the street. Tommy has to move, has to say something, but the soles of his boots are melting, fused to the cement of the driveway, his throat is still closed, and Evan—Evan is walking away.

Tommy wants things, too.

He forces a breath, in and out, on a four-count, licks his lips, and asks, “When do we leave?”

Evan radiates a warmth that scatters out, tangible and visible like a sunrise before he even turns around, beaming. “I was thinking a few weeks after the baby comes, but—but—yeah?”

“Yeah, I, uh, I could chase some stars over the Rockies. With you.” Tommy’s insides unknot, and the life rushes back into his limbs. “And the rest, too. I noticed it’s my truck in this scenario?”

Suddenly Evan is in front of him, closer than they’d managed even that morning after, pressed gently against him from chest to knees, arms winding around his waist. “Much more cargo space. Very practical. And I kinda thought you might be in the same boat, you know, with the unused vacation. Maybe enough seniority to hang onto your spot.”

“Probably, yeah, they generally…” He doesn’t even know how that sentence might have ended, has rarely thought about anything more than a long weekend away, but then Evan’s kissing him, deep and slow and sweet like they might already be the only people on the planet. His warmth flashes over through Tommy, nerve by nerve, until he’s lit up and burning, flammable in places he’d spent months trying to forget this man could expose.

When Evan pulls back, it’s with Tommy’s face between his hands, his relief and hope palpable. Like life might go on, like the world might really be bigger, could even be better, sometimes, than it had been.

“Let’s go,” he whispers, so close and so quiet that Tommy can feel each syllable rumble against his skin, tires steady on a gravel road away from this scene and toward the next.

[cinderellarhea]

You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

[cinderellarhea]

Being chronically ill is like

“It’s fine”

“It’s fine”

“It’s fine”

*complete mental breakdown because you can’t do this anymore*

“It’s fine”

[cinderellarhea]

in honour of the transfer mention in canon (which I will be choosing to believe is still Buck's plan until s9 starts and ruins all my fun once again), let's have a slice of my 'buck leaves the 118 fic', shall we? we are finally at his first day.

==============

.“Heard you prefer to go by ‘Buck’, right?” Captain Deluca asks. Buck nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “There were, uh, three Evans in my class at the academy, so uh, ‘Buck’ kinda stuck, I guess.”

“And when did you get out of the academy? Last week?” One guy across the loft asks, a tone in his voice that immediately reminds Buck of Eddie. He bristles, but Deluca beats him to the punch.

“Roy!” he barks. “Don’t get bitter now just ‘cause we got someone prettier on the team.”

Laughs rise up from the rest of the team. The guy – Roy – raises his hands in surrender.

“Alright,” Deluca says, clapping Buck on the shoulder with a heavy hand. “Go put your stuff away, then come back and meet your squad.”

“Yes sir,” Buck says.

“And don’t call me ‘sir’, jeez, I ain’t that old,” Deluca groans, but he’s smiling. Buck grins, quick and nervous, and nods. Deluca gives him a bit of a shove, and Buck heads down to the locker room.

One of the lockers is decorated with streamers, and a handwritten sign that declares ‘For the new guy!’ in a curlicue font. Buck smiles, but he still stands cautiously back as he opens it up. Thankfully, nothing pops out at him. He peeks inside to find it empty, and sighs in relief. He’d already put his uniform on at home before coming in, so he shoves his bag into the locker, and takes a minute to breathe.

This is good, he tells himself. This is a good thing.

He closes the locker, smiling again at the streamers. When he turns around, Roy is in the doorway. Buck’s guard goes up immediately. Roy sighs, and steps forward, extending a hand.

“Sorry, man,” he says. He sounds genuine. “We don’t know each other well enough to joke like that yet. I’m Roy.”

“Thanks,” Buck says. He takes the hand extended and shakes it. “Buck. Are you, uh, on the same shift?”

“Yeah,” Roy says. “Cap actually picked you as my partner. Sorry I made a bad first impression.”

“No, it’s uh, it’s okay,” Buck says. Their hands drop. “I should tell you about how I acted when I met my new partner, at my old house. I was a bit of a dick.”

“You?” Roy snorts. “Can’t picture it, Buck. Anyway, come on up, say hi to the rest of the guys. I promise, we’re not all assholes. Just Cap, sometimes.”

===============

tag list: (since we're so close to this fic getting posted, I won't be adding any more people to the tag list, but all of my posted snippets so far can be found under the tag 'buck leaves the 118 fic' on my blog, and of course, I'll post the AO3 link once it goes live. thank you to everyone who has kept up with this fic so far, yall are so wonderful, I love this community so much ❤️)

@littlepaws9 @loulou-land @dashing-disaster @kinardstits @tyrusshipper12

@samjohnssonvt @magdalyna @sweaters-and-silly @safelycapricious @onceuponatmi

@hubcaphalo @letsdosciencetoit @ladyeyrewrites @cm1031sr @sunsetandevningstar

@marsflower @buckitweride @joyfullyhauntedmiracle @sahtinekryze @agentpeggycartering

@gayjaytodd @darkjediqueen @avnasace @lostintheuniverseslies @breadread101

@whentheresidentsareevil @athenap47 @cheesycottagecheese @youreademonroyce @eliotwaughdeservesbetter

@dearqueend @paperyowl @todd-harper @spence922 @chococara25

[cinderellarhea]

''Doesn't know what it's like to receive love''

[cinderellarhea]

[cinderellarhea]

[Repunzel?] Did I ever tell you I've got a thing for brunettes?

TANGLED, dir. Nathan Greno and Byron Howard (2010)

[cinderellarhea]

week 4 of kittenhood is the peak. their ears haven’t even straightened out and they have triangle tails. unbelievable.

[cinderellarhea]

I think a lot about how in Ice Age 1 a huge theme is the slow but unstoppable advancement of the human species as they start to threaten previously unchallenged megafauna (hunting the pack of the antagonist sabertooth and killing Manny the mammoth’s family) and then in all the sequels they just fuckin disappear

[cinderellarhea]

EVERYONE(!) I’m blazing this post because at this pace we might barely hit 1,000,000 signatures—or just fall short. PLEASE reblog this post, no matter where you are from, so we can reach as many EU citizens as possible and end this horrible practice!

[cinderellarhea]

The ice cream boss can be seen in footage saying: "You're killing poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by cutting Medicaid for kids here."

[cinderellarhea]

My current top three contestants for if they decide to reconcile Bucktommy by only mentioning Tommy:

1. "You haven't been baking in a while" "Eh... y-yeah, I don't have to fight the urge anymore... Tommy and I have been talking again"

2. Buck watches others being happy, picks up his phone, dials a number and asks "Hi... So what are you doing on Saturday?"

3. Buck is asked about where he'll live with Eddie being back and he answers "Oh, I'm staying with Tommy, he offered me his guest room" "Judging from your face you aren't using the guest bed, are you?"

All of those options are obviously followed with Buck's Tommy smile

[cinderellarhea]

Dean in Purgatory: * feral being who kills everything on his path, who threatens and insults his ticket out of monsters Heaven every couple of seconds *

Dean in Purgatory, when he looks at Cas:

[cinderellarhea]

I fucking love repetitive lines that change meaning over a piece of writing yes slay

[cinderellarhea]

I don’t care. Yeah, he’s 30, but I feel so bad for Buck that he truly has no one in his corner that will put him first. The ONLY person that lets Buck feel and listens is Tommy. So yeah, I won’t ever let them go because even if it was accidental, they made a character that cherishes Buck and all his flaws and beautifulness. Even with all his fears, he still chooses to show up and listen.

[cinderellarhea]

vampire sucking blood from the inner thigh can be something so erotic and more vampire media needs to get on this train

look at this post with your eyes if you agree